Hezekiah Butterworth

Hezekiah Butterworth (December 22, 1839 – September 5, 1905) was an American writer of books for young people and a poet.

Butterworth was born in Warren, Rhode Island. He was a platform lecturer, speaking on education, hymnology, and his travels, which included tours in Europe, South America, Cuba, and Canada. Among the works of Butterworth, most of them books for boys, are several volumes of Zig-Zag Journeys, the Knight of Liberty, In the Boyhood of Lincoln, Great Composers, The Patriot Schoolmaster, Songs of History, Poems and Ballads, and Boys of Greenway Court, together with several cantatas.

The family were among the founders of Rhode Island, liberal Baptists of the Roger Williams views. In early life, he began to contribute to the leading newspapers, among them the New York Independent. In 1870, he became connected with the Youth's Companion. He wrote Zig-Zag Journeys, seventeen volumes, for a Boston publishing firm, which are stories of places, of which some 250,000 copies were sold. He wrote the Story of the Hymns for the American Tract Society in 1875, and won the George Wood Gold Medal for it. He later prepared a companion volume called The Story of the Tunes. He prepared several cantatas for George F. Root's music, and Under the Palms had a great popularity in England. He wrote for the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's publications, the Christian Union, and other periodicals. Volumes of his published poems include Poems for Christmas, Easter and New Year's and Songs of History. Butterworth was one of the editors of The Youth's Companion. He owned an old farm on the famous Mt. Hope Lands, Bristol, Rhode Island, and had a cottage at Belleview, Florida.